03 Mar 2021

Fibre to the Home (FTTH) is one of the products aimed at driving connectivity and propelling Botswana into the digital economy.

Fibre to the Home is the delivery of a communications signal over optical fibre from the operator’s network to home.

Briefing the media on March 2, Botswana Fibre Networks (BoFiNet) senior public relations, marketing, and communications officer, Ms Dineo Rowland said BoFiNet was 100 per cent owned by the government and was mandated to provide a national telecommunications network infrastructure for driving connectivity and economic growth.

She added that BoFiNet was a wholesale provider of national and international telecommunications infrastructure and provided services to all licensed telecommunications operators and Internet Service Providers (ISP).

“Batswana can fight COVID-19 by reducing movement to the shops and by holding meetings virtually when they have FTTH as it enables online banking, online shopping, e-learning, virtual meetings, and e-health,” she said.

Ms Rowland reiterated that the intention was to build and manage FTTH infrastructure for the whole of Gaborone covering all medium and high cost residential premises in the next 12 months.

For his part, FTTH project manager, Mr Justice Toteng said Botswana Fibre Network was currently deploying an FTTH project in Gaborone, which will cover Gaborone West (Block 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9), Gaborone Central, Broadhurst, Tsholofelo, Block 10, Maruapula and Village residentials.

He said the project to install and commission an optical fibre cable network would provide a high-speed broadband network to the mentioned residential areas.

In that regard, Mr Toteng requested the community to allow respective engineers access to their residential premises, in preparation for the deployment of the FTTH service.

“Currently communication is being delivered to homes through copper (ADSL) and wireless (radio) infrastructure with a bandwidth of up to 50Mbps.

Fibre to the home provides vastly higher bandwidth of up to 300Mbps offering a more stable connection to consumers as compared to copper and wireless, thereby enabling more robust video, internet, and voice services,” he said.

He said they expected to complete the project by end of August.

Mr Toteng underlined that completion of the infrastructure deployment of the network would create a platform for service providers to provide connectivity within a large spectrum of locations without exuberant investment overlays.

“This deployment of the fibre network infrastructure may lead to excavations, planting of poles and installation of the optic fibre cable plant, as a result, some of the utilities, paving and decorations in front of your premises may be affected.

However, reinstatements on the affected area will be made to its original state,” he said.

Meanwhile, the chairperson of Internet Service Providers Dr Bernard Ndove noted that as service providers they committed to offering the end-user affordable access.

He highlighted that Internet Service Provider Association had 34 member companies that were wholly regulated by Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority that Batswana could choose from for quality service provision. ENDS